Wednesday, October 21, 2015

Welcome back for another episode of Cube Card spotlight. I'm your host, Plaid Magic and today we'll be discussing a bit of an odd card

Mirrorweave

2(U/W)(U/W)

Instant

Rules Text: Each other creature becomes a copy of target nonlegendary creature until end of turn.The Rundown:

Our subject today I think is best described as one of the most unique combat tricks in the history of magic. I didn't say best, that's up for debate, but it is indeed unique. turning your Lingering Souls tokens into your opponents Grave Titan or Wurmcoil Engine can literally end the game. This card has been the cause of some of the most interesting board states I have seen, and is very often the last spell cast in a game. I personally consider this card the opposition to Wrath of God. This card is a blowout card for wide strategies for 4CMC, while wrath is a blowout for controllish build, especially when facing a wide strategy. I have also used this as a wrath before by targeting a Master of Waves Token, which had the advantage of killing an opposing Keranos.

TL:DR

Power Level:

Unpowered fun card

Cube Tutor Stats as of Today (9/14/2015):

Pick: 2032

Pass: 16798

Pick Percent: 10.79%

Cube Count: 575 - (that's not many, lol)

Collective Pros:

Fun instant speed combat trick

Offensive/Defensive Blowout

Collective Cons:

Hard to gauge, but relatively high mana cost

Effective usage requires some play time

Swap/Compare

Polymorphist's Jest: On Defense

Dragonshift: Also a blowout when overloaded

Mirror Entity: Similar support for wide strategies.

Verdict:

A versatile combat trick for a non-powered cube that requires some skill to navigate. Generally, the card does not match its color pairing's strategy, and may have just as well been costed (2)(W)(W), it does play well in the decks that play it. This card's power level is heavily dependent on the boards states your cube creates, but can be very fun to discover its "best play". Though not to be used specifically as a "mass pump" effect, this is not a card for a playgroup that dislikes combat tricks or finds them to be underpowered.

The Discussion

I run this in my tier 2 cube, and it is an all star in the format. It is a trick, but when cast during combat, it is often an overrun. In a pinch, it can be a counter or kill spell.This card really depends on the board states your cube creates. If your cube leaves a ton of guys on the battlefield, then this will find a way to shine. The effect is too powerful not to. If yours is the cube that often wins with one or two creature win cons and some planeswalkers, this is a pass.My verdict is to try it in a planeswalkerless cube.One final note: you will need someone with judge level rules knowledge to explain all the potential interactions.

I don't really have anything to comment about this card other than it seems far and away from being playable in just about any cube list that is looking to optimize powerful cards and I could list 10 cards off the top of my head that would be better in Azorius than this card. You generally have 4-7 cards at your disposal per guild and I can't imagine any unpowered list wanting this in that selection.And honestly, that's downside enough for me to not even discuss the card in length.

I'm not surprised by your evaluation, but I would disagree, though, only because we have been running it since the beginning of our cube. It is often actually a pretty early pick, played pretty often in White/Red or White/Green tokens more often than it is played in an Azorius build. As mentioned above, it is very often the last spell played, because you have a ton of options. In any build that goes wide, this card is crazy. I can't think of many 4CMC spells that can end the game, usually by T5.Just a quick edit: just ran though our cube records (maybe we are just crazy), but this card has only been sideboarded once in the last year, it has otherwise always been maindecked.

To each their own. I can say with confidence that combat tricks like this would not interest my group (Vines of Vastwood is actually the last straight up combat trick in my list and it's on its way out) and a card like this would end up being dead last in each draft.It (and its ilk) strike me as woefully underpowered when we're looking at cards like Ojutai, Supreme Verdict, Sphinx's Rev. on the upper end and even if we're discussing "low power" Azorius cards, I would look to steer the color pair towards fliers with cards like Aven Mimeomancer, Lyev Skyknight or Thunderclap Wyvern since those would be in line with what the color pair can alternately be suited for. (UW Fliers)I mean, your cube certainly has a distinct quirky uniqueness to it (This isn't an insult, it's a compliment) so a spell like this might be right at home there but it would never sit right in mine, even at 720 cards.

Unpowered cubes vary greatly in style. It could. It obviously wouldn't be a good fit in yours, as it doesn't seem like the players who play yours are interested in it's mechanic, but not taking the time to explore it's merits 'in a vacuum' (sort of, I mean... as much as possible? lol) on the internet is very different than this.But yes, from the sounds of it it's certainly unplayable in your cube. Or at the very least, it would be a low pick due to player bias.

I mean, I'd rather have a similar style of effect tacked on a creature and I prefer that effect to be asymmetrical. You get great mileage out of Mirror Entity (starting on turn 4) and also from Jazal Goldmane (starting on turn 5) in the same deck that could theoretically want this card and those come with a creature attached and don't require something like a fat opponent creature on the ground and you to be on fliers.It might fit somewhere, but it seems like you're wasting a spell slot for something that's very conditional (and I do mean very conditional) when you could instead be running a consistent card that's just great no matter the situation.

So I think "very" is "very" harsh. It may not work the best in your cube, but I think you may be looking at this card with a bit of tunnel vision. The above comment that this should be classified as a white card is probably correct. Also, this does not require an opposing bomb. This most often is used in a Boros build, and as such it has a lot of options. When I have Mirrorweave in hand, I am most often not having trouble finding a fantastic target, its mostly trying to hold it for the right moment for the best scenario. So, in red/white, some GREAT common creatures that this can target that you would have in your own deck that creates a crazy swing/win or just some good tempo gain would be Ash Zealot, Borderland Maurader, Plated Geopede, Soltari Champion (off the top of my head) just for creatures that cost less than 4 cmc. You also have the opponent bomb option, as well as a slew of creatures 4 CMC and above in those colors. I definitely understand you critisism, especially based on cube context, but I think this is much more flexible than you are suggesting. That said, we run a 50% creatures cube, so we have a ton more options than most.

KengyYeah, pretty much agree with this. I know it was included 5ish years ago in some cubes, but quickly was replaced by the glut of amazing UW cards that have been released since.

I've got Mirrorweave in my 4 player Political cube. It has some super duper fun applications such as Mirrorweave everything into Bronze Bombshell, then Cultural Exchange two opponents so they all go kaBOOM.

I don't really have time to make an in depth comment, but my gripe is that it's very dependent on drawn out games with big board states and the hoping that someone will play a bomb while you have a large number of creatures. It seems like it would be best (if it were in both U and W) in a 3 color deck or some aggro/token strategy. It's an interesting effect and if you had it as a pet card in a typical powered/high unpowered cube no one would have a problem, but as a mainboard it is just too entirely dependent on other cards in an unclear archetype to be just flat out added.Verdict: pet card in a higher powered cube, with blowout potential in the right deck, but would likely not be played in favor of more consistent utility effects (removal, creatures, tokens, etc.).

There is no doubt that it is super fun. It was even more super fun when damage stacked first before it resovled - similar to Ghostway.However it is really tooooo narrow to consider for any cube i think.

So, I guess this may only be a serious consideration for a heavy creature cube (50%) like ours? I feel like this doesn't pass the vacuum test, but in reality its actually quite good in any W/X tokens build. I challenge you all too try this if you have a white core tokens build, but in the meantime, I will adjust the eval based in the feedback here, which has been pretty bad overall. What I will say is that I co-manage a cube with @crow13th, who is very much a statistical tactician, and I provide the jank. Of the 5 cards I forced him to add to our cube that were not "the best card" for the context of our cube, a year later Mirrorweave is the only one that remains. He has, based on the feedback of our players agreed that Mirrorweave is a very powerful AND fun card, and would not consider replacing it. I would suggest cube builders who have some skew towards a creature based cube to try this out and see how it goes, but I will give this review the near unanimous thumbs down for now.

I used to run this. It was mediocre/useless a lot of the time, and a hilarious blowout sometimes. Not really what I want from a guild card.I'd say the highlight of this one's tenure was the game my opponent went Bird into Hero of Bladehold, then lethal'd me turn 4 on the play. That's really more to do with Hero being insane, but I remember my buddy doing a lot of thinking before announcing "Fuck it... 20 damage your face?"I've never been so confused to be dead.

Yep, had a player playing it in a control deck with a batterskull germ as his only creature, targeted the germ and it wiped out all but one creature on the other side. Work well in a deck with spear of heliod

Tuesday, September 15, 2015

Welcome back for another episode of Cube Card spotlight. I'm your host, Plaid Magic and today we'll be discussing a card you can't even put in your deck

Worldknit

Conspiracy

Rules Text:

(Start the game with this conspiracy face up in the command zone.) As long as every card in your card pool started the game in your library or in the command zone, lands you control have "Tap: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool."

Synopsis

The Rundown:

A draft manipulator extraordinaire. If this comes out in pack three of a draft, it's probably a dead card. If you get this pack one, this is the definition of a build around me. You need to actually play with ALL of the cards you drafted, but your lands can be tapped for any color mana.

Enables multi-color interactions that might not be possible outside of this card

Basically unremovable effect

Collective Cons:

Must play with all cards drafted

Close to a dead card in pack 3

Warps drafts, good cards that might otherwise wheel may not, affecting other strategies

Swap/Compare

Chromatic Lantern

Prismatic Omen

Joiner Adept

Verdict: Incredibly unique draft and format warping skill intensive "card". Experiences of this card in cube range from amazing to toxic. The general consensus is that if you run conspiracies in your cube, try it out, if only for a short time

The Discussion

flclreddiI encourage every person that likes conspiracies / wonky / powered cards to try this in a draft at least once. It is a crazy good feeling to be able to draft any cards you want, and the best cards, without color restriction.That said, I think that anyone with half a brain that P1P1's Worldknit should win almost every one of their games, provided they draft correctly.It is a toxic card for cubes. You take it early and try to make it work. There are a few things that result from this:1) You pick the best card in every pack. This means that on average, you win games because the quality of your cards are just straight up better than the quality of your opponent's cards, with relatively few exceptions.2) In the event that the cards aren't spectacular, you just default to picking lands. This makes your deck more efficient, and makes everyone else's decks more inefficient, without needing to know what colors people are going.3) You end up with 2-3 bad cards per pack on average, but with a carefully constructed curve of awesomeness, it doesn't really matter.4) It takes the fun out of the drafting process, not only for you by making every decision a pretty easy one, but by weakening the card pool for literally everyone that isn't you.I recently put Worldknit into my cube as a filler spot and test card, and one of my friends picked it up in the middle of pack 2. Even that late, he was able to make it work, grabbing leftover cards that were extremely powerful but too color intensive for others to play [stuff like Necropotence and some hybrid cards]. He said it was one of the most fun drafts he has ever had, but there were a number of cards in his deck that I figured would have tabled because of color restrictions but didn't. It really messes with predicting what will come back around to you.End Verdict - test it out if you like, but if you're serious about a traditional cubing experience, I'd stay away from this and other conspiracies.

FlemePretty much what I wanted to say, but more eloquently put. I agree with everything except the final verdict of not including other conspiracies. I feel that Power Play and Backup Plan (that I both run, and have for months now) are both fine. They're powerful for sure and they're usually high in the pick order but the decks running those have also never won a draft (I've kept track) so I've decided to keep them.

hubayGoing to go on a slightly surprised rant here: backup plan decks have never won a draft? I have to say I'm very skeptical. It's not an auto-win by any means, but in my group's power cube the consensus is you pick it over sol ring or lotus. The card is absurd.It probably decreases in value as the power level of your cube decreases, sure. But in power cube it gives you stupid, stupid draws. Storm, twin combo, tezzerator nonsense, channel decks all become dangerously consistent. Aggro decks don't have to worry about flood. multi color goodstuff or control decks can hit the right curve.

FlemeI've kept track. Those decks have gone 2-1 but have literally never won a draft in the 20~ some drafts I've done (not all have had Backup Plan obviously, being 720 after all).I can see it being absolutely broken in 360 powered, but for 720 unpowered it has not been so good as to warrant removing it although I've considered removing the conspiracy cards to free up some colorless space but never because they've been too good.

hubayGotcha - I can definitely see that making a big difference in how broken it is.

FannyBabbsThanks for the discussion on Worldknit. Somebody recently told me it was pants-on-head broken in cube and I just couldn't see it. 5 Color goodstuff decks just aren't that degenerate in my experience. It never occurred to me to hate-draft lands to lower your amount of durdle-picks and have an actual deck.That being said, I think ruining the actual draft environment is the more crucial reason I would never run this card. If you are drafting with 8 people, sure it probably doesn't derail things badly enough, but I regularly draft with 4-5 and even one person fucking around can really trash signals for the rest of us.

SocksofGranduerAre you kidding? If I drafted this card, I would be drafting every dual I could find. The biggest drawback of worldknit is that you have to run every card you draft. The best way to help mitigate that restriction is to draft as many non spell cards as humanly possible to keep your total count low.

ScottRadishThis is the problem with this card. The correct stategy is to draft as many lands as possible. I've seen Worldknit decks running as little as 51 cards. The deck becomes super consistant, and everybody else is left without fixing.

CrazyMike366I think it's at its most interesting in a large cube where you can't predict whether or not it'll show up and in less powerful cubes where synergy and archetypes are at a premium.

wox1510This card is a trap.The downside of having to play sideboard cards and last picks really dilute the threat density of your deck. To have any kind of consistency, you need to draft a ton of non-basic lands to keep your card count respectable, and once you have all those lands, you don't need world knit anymore.The way to make it work is to take it early, and then take ALL THE PLANESWALKERS!! This is the only situation I've seen where the worldknit deck is stronger than a 40 card deck from the same pool.Last thing to remember during draft: just because you took it doesn't mean you have to play it.Edit: I guess that was Wox the player talking. Wox the cube owner says that if enough people in your playgroup want to make it work, then it can go in pretty much any cube. It does need a ton of nonbasics to be most effective, so make sure your cube has them. It works quite well with Strip Mine and Maze of Ith

C0L0NEL_ANGUSI have nothing constructive to add because I've never played with this card. But I will say though, I think it looks like a lot fun if you pick it very early...

FlemeI feel like it skews the draft too much to be an actually good card to cube. First, you're either stuck with a 70~ card deck or you're drafting all the lands which nullifies the fact that your lands are already producing all the colors. Either way you're in a trap - you choose between lower quality cards since you're prioritizing picking all the lands to cut your deck size down or alternatively you're picking all the midrange goodness you can get your hands on and sacrificing consistency by having a huge deck.Add to that the fact that the Worldknit player, whatever approach they choose, is actively screwing every other drafter by either taking cards from all decks that people send wheeling and would be likely to wheel if it wasn't for the 5-color goodstuff guy or alternatively they're ruining everyone elses draft by taking all the lands to bring their deck size down.Either way it seems that the inclusion of this card serves nothing but to ruin the drafting experience for the whole table and as such I would never include it in cube unless it's specifically a conspiracy cube (I have no issue with conspiracies otherwise and do run 2 myself as well as some conspiracy cards).I've also heard of house rules where one can draft Worldknit and play it with a 40 card deck which straight up makes it more busted than Sol Ring, and coming from me that's saying a lot.

silaswI think there's a lot to be discussed about Worldknit. Some people think it's too powerful, some people think it ruins the draft. I still like it, but I'm willing to be swayed to the other side.First of all, the power level of Worldknit depends heavily on the composition of the cube. The more narrow cards there are in the cube, the worse it gets. It's interesting to see Worldknit players get stuck with dedicated aggro cards and dedicated control cards in the same deck. Also, people will say that it's best to take as many lands as possible; that depends on the strength of the mana fixing in the cube. Shocklands, for example, are worse than basics for the Worldknit player.People who play Worldknit decks usually say it's fun, but it's also basically easy mode. However I disagree with the argument that it screws up the draft for everyone else. Drafting is only interesting when there's some overlap between the cards different players want. If each player has a color to him/herself, the draft is totally uninteresting. Worldknit ensures that at least one player overlaps with every other player.In the past, I've found that Worldknit decks perform about average, maybe a bit above average. I look forward to testing it more.

transcensionistThis has really underperformed in my group. Even decks that drafted a ton of lands to compensate the total cards in the deck struggled to do well. And our guy that wins nearly every week tanked when he tried the worldknit deck. I see the potential, sure, but compared to just drafting a 40 card synergy deck this seems much harder to pull off.

ErikulumWorldknit is a fun card... but quickly gets old, is a dead card when not opened in the first pack and, like others explained, negatively affect the drafting experience.That said, I'd recommend adding it to your cube, if you haven't already tried it, it's fun for a while.

americanextremeThis card is highly skill testing. Bad drafters will miss evaluate what they need and have a very bad decks. Excellent drafters can have a power level and consistency that has never been seen. I particularly like this card because it forces the play of cards that might not otherwise be seen. And the combinations of cards can be really weird but funny.

Welcome back for another episode of Cube Card spotlight. I apologize for the delay, but it was a national holiday, so... I'm your host, Plaid Magic and today we'll be discussing a popular vote winner that has not yet been released, scheduled for the much anticipated and hyped set Battle for Zendikar. Lets get a step ahead of the game with this one, shall we?

Ruinous Path

1BB

Sourcery

Rules Text: Destroy target creature or planeswalker

Awaken 4 - 5BB(If you cast this spell for 5BB, also put four +1/+1 counters on target land you control and it becomes a 0/0 Elemental creature with ahste. It's still a land.)

The Synopsis

Category: RemovalThe Rundown:

At this CMC, this is a pretty interesting piece of removal. So you have a sorcery speed [[Hero's Downfall]], or an expensive mono black Dreadbore in the early game. You do, however, have the topdeck option in the late game of a nice tempo swing. Awaken 5 for the 5BB seems much more reasonable, but since the non-awaken cost of this card is 3, I still think the possible upside outweighs the down.

Added affect of giving late game kill spell more swing, and utilizing excess land

Collective Cons:

Depending on cube build, Creatures and plainswalkers may be too restrictive, and this underperforms compared to an acidic slime or nekrataal

Possible upside is so late in the game that it may be irrelevant

Mid game spot removal or late game blow out, but not exciting in either role.

Swap/Compare

DreadBore - Same effect in Rakdos for 1 Mana less

Hero's Downfall - Same effect, instant speed

Netrataal - Removal Plus Body

Silence the Believers - High CMC removal with options

Verdict: An effective sorcery speed reprint of Hero's downfall, with possible late game upside. Its not a good swap for hero's downfall, but in larger singleton cubes, the upside may be worth the inclusion, running alongside Downfall and Dreadbore.

General Argument For Inclusion:3 CMC sorcery speed Creature or Planeswalker removal is very often what Vindicate functions as most of the time. The upside of Vindicate being a Kill-All spell is what earns it a slot in cubes, though non-creature, non-plainswalker removal is not terribly common, so adding this spell with a possible late game option of replacing your opponents biggest Planeswalker or creature threat with your own 4/4 is unlikely, but possible, for the downside of not being able to remove artifacts, Lands or enchantments.

General Argument Against Inclusion:

In a small cube, there are better options. Working toward efficiency in removal, Hero's Downfall, Dreadbore, Vindicate are probably going to be better options in most cases, even though only one of them is mono black. If you have a spot open for a black removal spell, and run a lot of Planeswalkers, this might be an option, but otherswise this doesn't make the cut.

The Discussion

ChirdakiIf Hero's Downfall didn't exist I would probably run this. As it stands I am not going to include it at this time. Having superfluous functional reprints that are IMO much worse because of sorcery speed does not a cube list make, despite the bonus at turn 11-12 / whenever you hit 7 mana.I did mark it down to look at again once the set is released. However I have no other cards written down at this time...not sure if I am happy or worried about that.

Rogue_DiplomacyFor seven mana at sorcery speed I want something with a little more punch. I'd compare this to Silence the Believers. Mid game spot removal or late game blow out, but not exciting in either role.

SinibusUSGCards that are described that way always end up being better than they're given credit for at first. Not saying it makes the cut, but hearing it described that way is something of a (positive) red flag for me.

PlaidMagicAlso, keep in mind the value add here is the option. A 7 mana spell should certainly be more powerful, but you have two modes, each slightly worse than a single mode spell at the cost, but that's the cost of having options

FannyBabbsI like this card a fair amount, but being Sorcery speed makes the front half pretty bland, and the back half is fairly unexciting for the mana. I get that it's greater than the some of it's parts, since it's just a mana sink for when you need it, but I feel like the upside of Awaken isn't big enough to justify the downside of Sorcery in most small-medium cubes.In larger/multiplayer cubes, this card seems ok. Not exciting, but nice to have around. I think in terms of versatility Awaken is less potent than Strive or Flashback, which puts this pretty solidly in the NO camp for me, outside of the largest cubes or cubes with 20+ walkers. I'd love to be wrong, though.

UncleMeatWorth it for larger cube counts simply because there are only so many spells that remove planeswalkers but in my 360 cube I'm planning on leaving this one out. Instant speed is critical and the 4/4 you get from Awaken just isn't a very large threat in a high powered environment like cube.

ggop_Sorcery speed is what kills it here. Like Chirdaki said, Hero's downfall is more often than not better just because of instant speed.Assuming you get to seven mana, comparatively at six-seven mana is where you want to be ending the game or considerably shifting the board (cards like Elesh Norn, Angel of Serenity, Massacre Wurm, Consecrated Sphinx, etc) so compared to those cards it is fairly lacking even if you get a 2-for-1. In 540 when you need more good removal, I can see this being a very reasonable inclusion since the 2-for-1 is just enough IMO.If you're at a 540 list or higher I can see this being an include and no one would bat an eye.

FlemeI'd argue that the sorcery speed "killing it" argument is a bit unfounded. Why is it that a sorcery speed spell that does the same but costs BR is more playable than this? I'd also be curious on what the percentage of Vindicates is that hits creatures or PWs? If I had to venture a guess, it'd be in the 70's. I mean I know that it's an answer-all which is why it earns its place but let's face it, most of the time it hits creatures or walkers. At Sorcery speed and in two colors at 3 cmc.We all also play Chainer's Edict while Diabolic Edict is the same spell at instant speed. Who here has flashed back Chainer's to get that justification? We might as well be playing Geth's Verdict to get another instant edict at 2 CMC but we justify keeping Chainer's for the flashback and 1B being more efficient than BB.I'm not holding my breath on resolving Ruinous Path for the Awaken cost even one tenth of the time, just like I'm not drafting Chainer's Edict just so I can flash it back. I feel like this card is great removal and just the fact that it hits walkers at 3 CMC while also being an answer to creatures makes for a good card.

ChirdakiI don't particularly like Dreadbore either, I think it is perfectly defensible to run Terminate instead. The vast majority of the time the instant speed is going to be far more relevant. So as a result Dreadbore doesn't make many main decks for us. I don't think you can run both Terminate and Dreadbore in a Rakdos section. Like if they printed another Dreadbore there is no way that would be included.I still have Dreadbore in as more of a sideboard buffer against card types but that doesn't mean it is right to run Dreadbore over Terminate. It's just something I live with.Chainer's Edict still has an effect at two mana, you don't need to get to 7 to have any kind of bonus. The mere presence of the opponent at 6 lands with a Chainer's in the yard can make me rethink whether I want to play something onto an empty board.I guess it comes down to is I do not mind running arguably worse / flexible removal spells at the two mana slot, but at the three mana slot I expect more from my cards. Especially when an almost identical card already exists and its an instant.At 540 obviously.

ggop_I agree, kills it is a little too harsh of a term. If I had to refine my comment I would instead choose to say "doesn't sell me" or something less severe. The reason why I think it's relevant is because it's too similar to hero's downfall.To me, this is an issue where it isn't with chainer's/diabolic edict simply because I prefer the sacrifice effect over "target" even if it is at times ineffective. The redundant absoluteness of both Downfall and Ruinous Path are a conflict for me and why I am not immediately jamming it in my cube.

FlemeSure. Cube size definitely does play into it and if I were at your size or lower, I don't think I could find the room for this card. It's a perfect and a natural inclusion at 720 which is why I'm here speaking favorably of the card but I know full well that it's not an all-star. It's a piece of removal and at that I don't think it can ever be very exciting but at least in the context of my cube, this is a playable card.

FlemeI think the spells to compare it to are Dreadbore, Vindicate and Hero's Downfall. Sure, it's clearly more narrow than Vindicate and technically costs 1 more than Dreadbore and slower than Hero's Downfall but the fact of the matter is that it's still a good spell. I don't think it has an advantage over Hero's Downfall in most cases but you can play it in just black or Bx rather than being WB or BR. (Comparing to Dreadbore/Vindicate - and don't take this as me berating Vindicate, I think that's one of the top spells in cube.)I don't foresee it being cast for the Awaken cost very often but I also imagine that the times that it's relevant, it's actually quite nice to have that 4/4 left behind after you've removed their threat.Planeswalker removal is at a premium. Black has straight up 1 spell in Hero's Downfall that takes care of walkers while being an otherwise playable spell. Other colors aren't much better (and some are in fact worse off) so I am gladly including another piece of PW removal that also doubles up as creature removal even if it's slower than Hero's Downfall. I'm already looking to include all 3 of the Planeswalkers from BFZ and already run a good number of walkers, so additional answers for them are always welcome.For me, this is an easy inclusion and I'm glad that it's going to be a BaB promo which means that an alternate art shiny is going to be made available

ChirdakiWhat is your walker cap? I am no sir'ing all 3 walkers...well I may run Ob Nixilis for a short time more because I hate the 4-5cc black section than I like Ob. But planeswalker creep is a very real thing.

FlemeIt is a very real thing and I haven't actually set a hard cap for myself and Analysis page currently reads 37 (which I think doesn't count for the 4 Origins walkers I have in) for a total of 41, or 5.1% + 0,6% density. You have 4.3% + 0.4% in yours.I'm looking to cut Elspeth Tirel (she's a vestige) for new Gideon who I think is an absolutely great cube card with all abilities being relevant. If one thinks of it as a creature it threatens 7 damage on turn 5 and you can just cash it for an anthem straight up which I think is nice. Also just making bears every turn is often good enough. I find new Ob straight up boring of a card as far as design goes (I mean to draw and lose life or to kill a creature is as demonic as it gets but it's bland) but there's no denying there's power in the abilities. If the card remains on the table for more than 1 turns I consider it a good card and while for some that might not be good enough, it is for me.I understand how some would not be inclined to include Kiora but it fits into my way of thinking about Simic and I'm looking to make that list into:Lumbering Falls (0)Coiling Oracle (2)Edric, Spymaster of Trest (3)Shardless Agent (3)Mystic Snake (4)Kiora, the Crashing Wave (4)Kiora, Master of Depths (4)After the release. 2 of the same PW is a bummer but I think both those fit into tempo/ramp/goodstuff that I'm looking to define Simic as and in 720 there's a very real chance of both cards not occurring in the same draft anyway. As for new Kiora as a card - I feel like she plays really well with a rampy tempo deck that I want Simic to be. The card advantage from -2 is pretty real and assuming you "get there" off a mana dork, you can play her on turn 3 and untap a dork + land, leaving countermagic or other interaction up.Anyhow, on the topic of 720, I always feel like I need some redundancy and I while I usually keep the mantra of "no strictly worse" cards in the cube, I'm not ready to agree that Ruinous Path is strictly worse in a lot of spots. I mean on the face of it there are a lot of times where I'd draft this over Dreadbore or even Vindicate (when I'm not in those colors) and those are great spells that I would never mind having and that already is a merit to Ruinous Path.I also noticed that due to the "high" number of walkers combined with the fact that I do have a bunch of token generation across colors, I'm also adding a Doubling Season in there. I have a bit of loose space in most of my colors for a little fun for the drafters and seems like that one card would make for an effortless inclusion for the player who wants to attempt Gxx superfriends or just give value for the green player. Mana Reflection hasn't been great so one piece of jank makes room for another.

Tuesday, September 8, 2015

Welcome back for another episode of Cube Card spotlight. I'm your host, Plaid Magic and today we'll be discussing the card that had the most votes in the previous spotlight vote

Splinter Twin

2RR

Enchantment - Aura

Rules Text: Enchant creature Enchanted creature has "Tap: Put a token that's a copy of this creature onto the battlefield. That token has haste. Exile it at the beginning of the next end step."The Rundown:

The namesake of a modern T1 deck, along side it's mirror breaking buddy, this card is exploited for its ability to combo off with a <4 CMC creature that can untap itself and go ~infinite, pooping out little copies. I think there are two ways to look at this card: As a combo piece/game ender, or as a "fair card" that has an incremental tempo gain and an interesting effect. That said, the 2-for-1 may hurt when using this as a fair card when the creature i's enchanting gets the DBlade.

TL:DR

Power Level:Powered/Unpowered

Cube Tutor Stats as of Today (8/31/2015):

Pick: 21967

Pass: 117448

Pick Percent: 15.76%

Cube Count: 3227

Collective Pros:

Cool Effect

WinCon

Collective Cons:

To enable the combo, you need to add cards that are barely cubable without it

Can be a draft trap

Without the combo pieces, it's fairly underwhelming

Swap/Compare:

Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker - Requires more commitment in R, but combo's off with more cards, including those that are separately playable (Restoration Angel most notably), and the Doom Blade hurts less.

Verdict:

An underwhelming "Fair" card, and best used as a piece of a package. The package involved, includes some cards that are also underwhelming. Auto-losing to combos is something not all cube groups are ok with. If you run the package deal, ensure that you also double up with Kiki, or break singleton.

The Discussion

Twin is a value card even if it doesn't get to resolve its infinite combo although when one drafts it, it will be for the combo. It's sort of a tricky card in that while it would net value with the various ETB creatures one would usually be cubing, those ETBs don't really exist in red (Siege-Gang?).Still, enabling the combo is cheap as far as design space goes since it (I'm talking Kiki+Twin here) requires Restoration Angel, Exarch, Pestermite and Zealous Conscripts. Out of those cards Kiki, Resto and maybe the Conscripts would be played on their own in other decks and I really don't think Pestermite and Exarch are viable to be played on their own in a cube setting. Sure, we've seen some control decks use Exarch as a blocker/combat trick to buy themselves time but I would rather have better creatures in those slots if it weren't for the combo. I mean, a card like [[Mizzium Meddler]] would be a better trick than that, I feel, and that's not a card I would run anyway.So, since the combo requires you to commit 6 cards out of which at least 3 are quite playable as is, Twin/Kiki combo is an easy inclusion to cubes and imo should be there. UR tends to be a less played combo even if it's completetely viable and I think it's good for that color pair to have a trick like this up its sleeve. Assembling the combo isn't easy with singleton cards either, so I feel that it's completely balanced too. In my cube we've had people try assembling the combo but so far we've not seen it happen.Conclusion: The combo requires a couple of very narrow cards that wouldn't otherwise be cubeable in a powerful format but since it takes so little space to include, it's a safe inclusion to cubes to help players have more incentive to go UR.

For the record I run Pestermite with no Twin. May be a relic of cubeing for the last 6 years or however long it has been but it still pull's its own modest weight and gets in for 2. Exarch on the other hand nah.I don't mind Twin that much as you mentioned the two points. Not viable in red and comes with a hefty RR commitment. Playing Exarch as a +1 enabler isn't that bad as Exarch is still serviceable as blue defense.Personally Twin combo evokes the same sort of salt that something like dying to Jace Memory Adept does. I hate that I can tap out at a healthy life total and just die from turn 3+, very shitty. Also the main reason why I don't play modern is that it is filled with those super UN-interactive types of decks, Summer Bloom, Twin, G. Vengeance, Tron, its all dumb goldfishing. Better believe that wouldn't be in a format I cultivate.Kiki is like not playable at all. RRR haste bear, if there are no good targets for Twin in red, why would I play a harder to cast worse version.

Do you mean super uninteractive modern decks? And to be honest, Modern Twin moved away from being an uniteractive combo deck with the loss of ponder and preordain and has become more of a combo control deck.

ChirdakiYeah UN-interactive, let me go re-read/fix that.Regardless the format as a whole upsets me, even Infect. It feels like unless you are playing like Grixis control (and even if you are sometimes) you have almost no if any relevant game decisions before you die or goldfish a win.

Thank you very much for bringing this up, I was hoping someone would. While we have a couple of goldfish wincons, they are usually two card combos, expensive, but the individual cards are there because they work outside the combo. IE, we have a counters matter cube, so you could technically draft Trike and Mike, or Thune Feeder combos but Triskellion, Michaeus The Unhallowed, Archangel of Thune and Spike Feeder are definitely fine cards in our cube outside of those combos. We really try to strive for interactivity in our cube, which honestly is my biggest personal issue with these "Package" pieces. That's the reason we support what we call "Stormish" in our cube for U/R, we don't have any storm cards, just more of a spells matter subtheme where the pilot can gain substantial incremental gains by casting/recurring spells, but no dead cards or goldfish interactive play is involved.

I agree with the sentiment that kiki combo brings people into UR - i drafted it at my last cube night and won one match with Taldrand, a card i was pretty certain is totally unplayable and was my 23rd card.

I currently run Talrand but he is very medium yes. I have a hard UR player in my group so I generally don't need incentive to add cards for that combo. Generally Keranos is all you need for most people in my group. Talrand will remain until an interesting creature is printed around that CMC.

Don't give up on Kiki! I like Kiki more than twin for two big reasons.You can switch what is copied. Splinter Twin is combo or bust, but Kiki can value copy all sorts of ETB effects like Mulldrifter, Nekratal, Thragtusk, without locking you in to a specific one.He can be in play before the copy target. Sticking in only red, turn 4: FTK, 5: Kiki+ FTK token, 6: Inferno Titan + Titan token. That's a line available to Kiki that's not available to Twin.I know the mana cost is rough, but I also know that a cube mana base can handle it. He plays well in any two color deck that has ETB effects.

Oddly enough I play Pestermite with no twin, but I DO play Kiki. RRR is a bit much, and he doesn't see a ton of play, but we see more kiki value than kiki combo. Mulldrifter, Titans, other neat stuff. Turn 5 Kiki into Turn 5 titan, copy the titan, swing gives you 3 titan triggers in one turn, and that's really cool.Kiki combos really well with Imperial Recruiter, fetching him up at first then you can copy recruiter to fetch other good things. Red doesn't have a TON of great kiki targets, but Rcruiter, Flametongue Kavu, Siege-Gang Commander, Zealous Conscripts (obv), Inferno Titan, and even to some extent Abbot of Keral Keep are all perfectly fine things to copy with him.

Splinter Twin is currently sitting in my on-deck binder... right next to Kiki-Jiki, Pestermite and Deceiver Exarch...All were in the cube in my original build, and stayed in for quite awhile. But as I powered down my list (I took out Sol Ring, Balance, True Name Nemesis and some of the cards that needed one or two other cards to function, like Progenitus/Emrakul/Blightsteel) and cuts started getting more and more tight... I eventually took out the Pestermite/Kiki combo.I'm slowly dragging (some of) my playgroup into cubing, so having infinite dudes insta-wins led to some feel bads.I do still run Zealous Conscripts however.

I'm not sure i agree that twin requires you to play "barely cubeable cards." Its possible i over estimate exarch / pestermite , but both seem perfectly viable in aggro/tempo and sometimes in control. Conscripts is good in aggro and as a way to steal walkers or a show-and-telled eldrazi/blightsteel. And just like in modern, any opponent who sees eother half of the combo will live in fear of it, playing around the combo.One advantage of kiki , which you allude to, is that he works well with pod and tooth and nail.

That's what these discussions are for! I guess the question i would pose in response is, do you/would you run PM or DE in a cube without Twin? We had Pestermite in our cube, but it just never made maindeck. That's our cube/group.

I think pestermite is best in a fairy-style shell (disruptive aggro, not necessarily the tribe). It's good in a geist+swords deck because it flies, can flash in, and beat down. U/R beats is also a thing, and it performs well there. Definitely not an all-star, but a good role player.Exarch seems like it would be a pretty low pick unless you're in peasant. He can't really beat down, and there are much better defensive creatures out there.Basically, If i was forcing twin and didn't get kiki/twin, I would probably run pestermite but not exarch.

preppypoofPestermite is a great card that makes it into most of my blue decks. Deceiver Exarch is definitely a lot worse and only makes my cube because of Splinter Twin / Kiki-Jiki

jeffderekI'm with the rest of these folks, I play Conscripts, Pestermite, and Restoration Angel in my cube all of which I played without either Twin piece (even though right now we have Kiki in).I'm always happy to play Pestermite in a tempo deck where I can hold up mana for countermagic and then flash him in, and it's a great way for blue to clear a blocker for an attack which can be very relevant.

MrConfusionI wouldn't run Pestermite or Deciever Exarch without the Twin-combo present, but I will play them in decks that are not trying to to Twin, as they are fairly decent tempo creatures.I also think it is wrong to set Twin and Kiki up against each other, I would play both, or neither. Redundancy is the number one factor to make combo viable, and so having two enablers is a must. With Twin/Kiki + Pestermite/Exarch/Conscripts/Resto in my 540 unpowered, the twin-combo comes together fairly well once every 4-5 drafts - but it never feels overpowered or unfair. I think it is perfect. (Also, Imperial Recruiter is very good in this deck, as it can tutor both Pestermite/Exarch as well as Kiki, so it adds a lot of redundancy).

admon_Pestermite tends to make U/R and U/W tempo decks in my cube. Its not the strongest pick, but it does its job in slowing down the opponent from responding to your board.Exarch isn't in my cube, but it just looks underwhelming outside of its combo.This also technically works on Zealous Conscripts, but something has seriously gone wrong for your opponent if you can either cast both in one turn, or cast conscripts and have it/you survive until next turn.I ran Kiki over Twin because the reasons you mentioned and its added flexibility. With kiki, you can choose a different creature next turn if it somehow survives and the game isn't over. You are kind of locked into creating a copy of the same creature with Twin.

ScottRadishSplinter Twin doesn't need to be used in the combo to be amazing. Putting it on Venser gives you a soft lock, and using it on things like Muldrifter or Snapcaster can generate huge card advantage. Sun Titan and Acid Slime have also been used. It often gets picked up in our U/R builds, but it has been played in builds without Pestermite.

PeasantToTheThirdFor these reasons though, I like Kikki a lot more because, despite the RRR cost, Kikki makes facing removal much better and is a better late game top deck.

FannyBabbsPros: Risky incremental value card.Cons: Randomly ends games for no good reason when paired with otherwise unexciting cards. Doesn't actually 'combo' with anything commonplace besides Zealous Conscripts, so it could be safe to include without support but it's basically a worse version of Mimic Vat, an already borderline card.Verdict: Garbage outside of dedicated combo cubes or cubes looking to mimic Constructed environments (modern). I try to two card game-ending combos in cube for the most part... while cute the first few times it gets really fucking old to randomly lose a game you were in the driver's seat of just because your opponent got his rocks off (see: every repeatable mill card in limited ever).